Trump says US has orders to strike Iran if Tehran assassinates him

Washington,UPDATED: Jul 13, 2026 13:24 IST

US President Donald Trump has said he has left standing orders for the American military to strike Iran "at levels they've never seen before" if Tehran carries out what he described as long-standing threats to kill him. But the US government does not have any automatic, pre-authorised mechanism that would trigger immediate retaliation if a president is assassinated.

If Trump were killed, power would pass at once to Vice President JD Vance under the 25th Amendment and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947, making him commander in chief with the authority to decide the US response. That means retaliation could follow, but not through any technical "dead man's switch", and the successor could also choose a different course.

Trump wrote on his social media platform on Saturday that Iran had made threats "to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate" him. He added that 1,000 "missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran, with thousands more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat".

Hours later, Iran's supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said Iranians would continue to avenge the killing of his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who died in the initial US and Israeli strikes that began the war in late February and was mourned at funeral events across Iran this week. In remarks aired on state television, he said, "We pledge to take revenge for the pure blood of you and all the martyrs of these two wars from the criminal and disgraceful killers." He added, "This revenge is the will of our nation and must certainly be carried out." During the funeral events, mourners repeatedly held posters and banners calling for Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be killed.

The White House did not immediately answer questions on Saturday about what would happen to Trump's military orders if he were killed. The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Israel had alerted US officials to fresh Iranian plots to kill Trump. The White House has declined to comment, but Trump appeared to refer to such threats during this week's NATO summit in Turkey, saying, "They want to take out the US leader -- me." Sabrina Singh, a former deputy Pentagon press secretary in the Biden administration, said, "Iran wanting to target senior American leaders is something that we know is happening," and added, "You have to take these as credible threats."

Trump was targeted in two domestic assassination attempts during the 2024 presidential campaign and also saw a gunman storm the White House Correspondents' Association dinner he attended in April. This week, he flew part of the way back to Washington from Turkey on an older Air Force One aircraft instead of a newer Qatari-gifted jet, raising fresh security questions about the newer plane. Images of that aircraft, retrofitted at an estimated cost of USD 400 million, showed it was not equipped with some of the missile detection and countermeasure systems used on earlier versions. The switch came as the US and Iran again began exchanging strikes, putting at risk last month's initial deal to end the war. Asked about Iranian threats, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, "I'm No. 1 on their list."

Garrett M Graff, author of Raven Rock: The Story of the US Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself -- While the Rest of Us Die, said the US has never had such an automatic retaliation system. "The US has, for a whole variety of reasons, never utilised a technical dead man's switch," he said. While the country has extensive continuity-of-government plans in the event of a nuclear attack or another catastrophe that wipes out most or all of Washington, those plans do not allow immediate retaliatory strikes simply because a president has died, even if that president had ordered the military to be ready.

Graff said the US spent years planning how nuclear launch authority would pass on in the event of a surprise attack, including during 30 years of the Cold War when airborne command posts remained in the air around the clock with a general on board who could take over launch orders if Washington was lost. He said Trump's remarks appeared to suggest he had left standing orders for the Pentagon to proceed with standard launch protocols if he was killed. But, Graff added, "There's a lot of reason to doubt the legality of such standing orders, since in the event of a president's death, the nuclear launch authority would immediately pass to the vice president or designated successor -- and ultimately it would be up to him or her to determine whether to proceed." He also said Trump may instead tell Vance, "If I'm killed, nuke Iran," which would make "more sense and would be absolutely legal". Trump's post referred only to firing missiles at Iran and did not explicitly threaten the use of nuclear weapons.

This is also not the first time Washington has warned Iran over threats linked to Trump. In 2022, the Biden administration warned Iran against attacking US citizens after the Justice Department disclosed that a member of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had plotted to assassinate John Bolton, Trump's first-term national security adviser. Bolton, now a Trump critic, last month pleaded guilty to illegally retaining classified documents in a case brought by Trump's Justice Department. At the time, President Joe Biden's national security adviser Jake Sullivan said, "should Iran attack any of our citizens, to include those who continue to serve the United States or those who formerly served, Iran will face severe consequences." Two years later, during Trump's campaign against Democrat Kamala Harris, the Biden administration again quietly warned Iran that any attack on Trump would be treated as an act of war.

The developments leave Trump's warning, Iran's threats and Washington's contingency planning at the centre of the latest tensions, while making clear that any US retaliation in such a scenario would be decided by the successor in office rather than by any automatic system.

With PTI Inputs

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